Vindicator - Power Hammer Vindi

Greatsword and damage

• Both sets offer a mix of defense and offense. There's no true defensive set in the build, but between 2 sets and 3 legends you have plenty of defensive skills to cycle through when focused by the enemy team.

• 帝国守卫 is great for blocking attacks under pressure and 幻影突袭 could be used not only as a gap closer but also a gap builder (just make sure you don't have an enemy targeted). These are not purely defensive skills though, their damage shouldn't be underestimated either. Imperial Guard hits particularly hard once it's charged up.

• 迷雾释放 and 永恒挽歌 are great AoE skills, but the latter deals more damage against single targets. Use these on CD.

  • People often dodge right after casting Eternity's Requiem. This allows them to pressure enemies while avoiding incoming attacks before delivering even more damage with 死亡前兆.

• 爆裂清扫 and 阿契摩洛斯之矛 add a bit of extra reach to the build. The Spear has a huge delay so you could even precast it in a fight and line it up with other damage sources for burst damage, or burst targets while the spear is charging which forces them to choose between using their defensives to avoid either the spear or your other attacks.

  • Swapping legends doesn't cancel 阿契摩洛斯之矛.
  • 爆裂清扫 applies 急速 which makes it a great setup skill for GS burst combos or Hammer auto spam.

• 游牧突进 does a lot of damage on a very short CD, if your GS skills are not available this is a solid option for pressuring targets at a reasonable energy cost. Being a mobility tool is a nice added bonus and makes it more versatile.

  • When 迷雾力场 is active, using this skill gives you 黑暗光环 which reduces incoming condition damage.

Hammer

• 迷雾力场 is one of your best offensive abilities on Hammer. The projectile it shoots when activated already applies decent pressure on its own but it's also a dark field, which means spamming 巨锤飞矢s through it will create leeching bolts for extra damage and healing.

  • Spamming hammer autos through this field while 附魔匕首 and 压倒优势 are active could do quite a lot of damage. It gets even better with 急速 from sources like swapping to Shiro in combat or using 爆裂清扫 before you start attacking. Since the build has bad 激怒 uptime Scavenger Burst can be even more important here, especially with the Salvation variant.

• Consider dodging before using any of skills 2-4. All of these skills deal high damage in a single strike, making them synergize well with 独行侠古物 which makes your next hit a guaranteed crit.

• 聚能崩灭 is rather straightforward, just something to use on CD. Cheap high damage skill, pick a direction and fire away.

  • Note: this can only be used on targets in front of you. Even turning your character slightly could cause this skill to fail sometimes.

• 相位猛击 is the primary burst skill of this set, but that's not what makes this skill interesting. When you pick a location it physically moves your character to the destination before porting back, all while evading attacks. This can be used to trigger Dragonhunter traps from a safe distance, throw off the pathing of enemy movement skills, or even hit targets with 迷雾之歌 from 1.2k range.

• 天降巨锤 creates a spectral hammer at the target location that goes off after a delay, knocking targets down. Use this to set up other, slower skills.

Combo examples

Greatsword/Shiro melee

1. 附魔匕首
2. 永恒挽歌
3. Dodge on top of your enemy
4. 压倒优势 - activate this while dodging, right before Eternity's Requiem starts dealing damage and maintain it for the rest of the chain
5. 幻影突袭
6. 迷雾释放

Defensive/counterpressure combo

1. Block attacks with 帝国守卫
2. Dodge
3. Hit them with 真实打击 (IG's chain skill)
4. CC them and gain 稳固 with 掠夺之怒
5. Heal up with 自我精魂

Disengaging if you're getting chased

1. About face into 暗影回撤 for moblity, cleansing and to avoid damage while swapping to Alliance Stance
2. 游牧突进 away from the fight, without a target
3. Use 自我精魂 if you can afford it, swap to Kurzick and keep running if they're still on you
4. Optional Turn around once more and use 战斗之舞 to build more distance while evading attacks
5. Optional 幻影突袭 without a target to build even more distance
6. Heal up with 无我精魂

Sustain

• Salvation-only Dodging removes a condition via 避开否决.

• Salvation-only 不屈奉献 provides passive damage mitigation, you should aim for a permanent uptime. 活力涌流 is a big help here when playing the Invocation variant, taking care of 40% uptime on its own (assuming you proc it every 5 seconds). 压倒优势 is a great instant trigger for Rapid Flow even if you get caught in a stun. Another huge help is 再生 from 不协平衡.

• Salvation-only 坚韧气魄 passively grants you barrier every few seconds for each boon you have (up to 5 boons).

• Alliance stance can be defensive on both of its legends, in fact one of the Luxon ones could be better for survival than any of the Kurzick ones: 掠夺之怒. The CC is great for taking pressure off you even against multiple opponents and the 晕眩 is just long enough to cover a cast of 自我精魂. Even if the CC didn't work the skill itself has 稳固 to protect your casts.

  • This is quite an expensive skill, but could make all the difference if you're seriously pressured.
  • If you can choose between using 掠夺之怒 and 唤醒 to break a stun, Reaver's Rage is usually the better choice.

• 树木之歌 is your best source of source of mass condition cleansing.

  • Tip: if you need to cleanse a lot of conditions and you're on Shiro, try to use 暗影回撤 first. This way you'll potentially get rid of a few non-damaging conditions, increasing the chance of 树木之歌 cleansing the damaging ones.

• Both Shiro and Saint Viktor have tools for evading attacks, these are 暗影回撤 and 战斗之舞. Quite useful when you've got energy to spare but not enough endurance to dodge and you need to avoid attacks.

  • Both skills can be used to avoid attacks while 定身d. While 战斗之舞 doesn't remove this condition, it will apply 抗性 which allows you to move and ignore the immob.

• Both GS and Hammer also have skills that help you avoid damage: 帝国守卫 and 相位猛击. Field of the Mists also deserves a mention but the 圣盾 only blocks 1 melee attack so it's still mostly used against projectiles.

• The Kurzick elite skill offers strong on-demand damage mitigation when you're being pressured, but you CANNOT be healed while it's active! Use it for a few seconds to survive burst damage if you can't avoid it, then turn it off or swap legends as soon as you want to heal back up.

  • The passive is also a solid support skill that heals allies (but not you).
  • The active healing (which occurs when the urn is cancelled) scales with your HP - lower HP, higher healing. At low health this is a decent healing skill worth using.

Support

• While this isn't a support build, you still have access to a couple of decent AoE healing/cleansing tools. Even if you're using them for personal survivability you should try to share them with nearby allies for extra value.

• 树木之歌, 无我精魂 and 圣徒维克多的盛骨瓮 are the most important tools here, but you could also peel for allies with CC skills and block projectiles with 迷雾力场 on Hammer.

Combo tools

• If your team is dropping fields before combat for either 迅捷 or 潜行 stacking, you should contribute by using 天降巨锤 followed by 相位猛击 as these are blast finishers.